Exclusive: Irish director Billy O’Brien (Isolation) is to begin work on his second feature film ‘Creeping Zero’ this October with ‘Lord Of The Rings’ star Dominic Monaghan among the confirmed cast members.

Set in 2023, the movie’s plot details a world divided into two tribes – normal humans and the Blanks, a group born without proper facial features. A new terrorist group and breakaway group of Blanks known as the Fumati is threatening the status quo and is using hi-tech devices to kill humans. In order to restore calm, a security outfit named the Creeping Zero has been tasked with hunting down the elusive Fumati.

The feature has been scripted by English novelist Jeff Noon and is based on his short story, which was published in 1998 as part of his ‘Pixel Juice’ collection.

Filming in Hungary is expected to get underway in October and will last for around six weeks. ‘Creeping Zero’ is then expected to go into post in Dublin and the UK towards the end of the year. The majority of post will take place in Windmill Lane with the exception of the picture cut, which will be carried out in the UK.

Windmill’s VFX team will be headed up by Ciaran Crowley, who previously worked on VFX for ‘Lockout’ at Windmill and has previously worked on huge blockbusters such as ‘The Dark Knight’.

’Creeping Zero’ was offered a production loan of €300,000 in the last round of funding from the Irish Film Board and will also avail of the Section 481 tax incentive.